Narayan Manepally is the CEO of Beerworks Restaurants & Microbrewery, the company behind Geist - a Bengaluru based ‘Designed for Indians’ craft beer brand. He developed a passion for brewing in the US, where he worked with the Intel Corporation in various research, technical marketing and product strategy roles for 14 years before returning to India, in 2003, to take over the family auto components business.

That same year, Manepally met his childhood friend Paul Chowdhury, at a school reunion. Together, the duo decided to pursue their dream of creating world-class, flavourful craft beer for the Indian palate. In 2005, he became a ‘beer-prenuer’ when he co-founded Beerworks Restaurants & Microbrewery with Paul, and introduced India’s first bottled craft wheat beer under the Geist brand. He also founded two microbreweries (Big Brewsky and Brewsky) which continue to run successfully in Bengaluru today.

More recently, Mohan Alapatt another childhood friend joined the company, which has set up Karnataka’s first craft distribution brewery in Bengaluru, and is currently shipping three variants of craft beer (Witty Wit, Weiss Guy, Uncle Dunkel&Kamacitra NEIPA) to over 50 restaurants across the city.
Narayan has five patents in his name and holds Bachelors in Electrical & Electronics Engineering degree, with several credits towards an MBA.